


buried in the past

by ewagan



Category: IDOLiSH7 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Karatoga (IDOLiSH7), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28857960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/pseuds/ewagan
Summary: All stories have some truth to them, which makes them the most dangerous thing of all.
Kudos: 9





	buried in the past

i. the forest

_There is a forest, past the river._

There are old stories about the forest. Stories about gates and old gods, spirits that possess dying humans and humans that become spirits. It is not a safe place, much less a kind one. Mothers warn their children not to wander too far, old folk caution the brash young men trying to prove themselves. It is the kind of place that is told of in stories, and not the ones with happy endings.

Most days, people listen. They do not wander too deep into the forest, they stay by the fringes, in sight of the village. Most people do not make it to the river and the bridge, even fewer cross the river and wander deep enough to find the gate. Those who do never come back. Only whispers of them. Taken by the spirits, eaten by a fox, captured by a dragon. These are the hushed stories told late at night, when the moon is dark and the children are sleeping.

All stories have some truth to them, which makes them the most dangerous thing of all.

ii. the spirit

_Deep in the forest, a spirit sleeps. Some say he was a god once, others have denounced him as an evil spirit, vengeful and destructive. All these tales forget that before he had been a spirit, he had been a boy. The spirit himself forgets sometimes, that he had once been a boy._

The shrine is quiet, peaceful. In its hallowed grounds, Shisei sleeps. It is easier than counting the years; time passes faster this way.

He dreams. Sometimes he dreams of a life past, the sun warm on his skin and rice fields gold, stretching across the horizon. He dreams of the stream he used to fetch water from, where his mother washed the clothes and the village children played in during the summer months. He dreams of plum rains and sweet wine, the sound of someone calling his name. The dreams blur into one another, and sometimes he wakes unable to remember. He wakes and finds himself gasping, reaching for a past that is long gone, reaching for someone he used to be but no longer is.

He is not a boy anymore, now. He has not been for sometime.

_Possessed by a snake spirit, he became a god. The rain fell at the wave of his hand, the river swelled at his voice. People revered him, worshipped him. They beeseched him for favour, for mercy. He blessed them regardless of their offerings, for he loved the people. He saw it as his duty to protect them, to use his power for their happiness._

They call him _Shisei_ , they name him and make a god of him. Water spirits are good for the land beloved by farmers. They are less capricious than the dragons, bound by duty and worship to a shrine, to those who honour and revere them.

He brings the rains in spring, flooding the paddy fields just enough. In the summer, the river does not dry up like it does elsewhere, and in autumn the harvests come in abundance, seeing the village through winter with plenty. They bring him offerings; sticky rice cakes made sweet with summer fruits, flowers in bloom, sake made with the first rice of the harvest.

He is not like the other gods that they know or have heard of, especially not for a serpent. He remembers cruelty well enough that he does not visit it upon the village. If it is within his power, he gives. They are easy enough to please, after all. Blessings for healthy children, rain for crops so they do not starve, protection on long journeys, healing for the sick. He has power enough for their small desires, to ward away any misfortune that comes their way.

_They called him a benevolent god, a kind one. They considered themselves blessed to be protected by such a god._

iii. the shrine

_They built a shrine for him—stone slabs and stone lanterns, a gate that denoted the barrier between his world and theirs._

There had been a shrine at the edge of the forest, a gate that stood just past the bridge.

The villagers brought offerings for him in the form of sweet tofu and bamboo shoots, sheaves of rice and fish, the perfume of flowers and incense. Shisei remembers them well, rice cakes sweet and sticky with summer's bounty, prayers and the sound of the copper bell tolling.

He also remembers the girl. Dark hair that tumbled down her back like a waterfall, skin pale as the moon and eyes deep and dark, holding secrets deeper than the woods. He remembers her knelt at the shrine, head bowed in prayer. For the crops to flourish, for the village to prosper. Sometimes, selfishly, for things to be different, for her not to be so different.

When Shisei first saw her, he knew. After all, like recognises like, and she is not entirely human. He doesn’t know whose child she is, only that she has been touched by something from his side.

The village had talked, they whispered. They say that she was cast away by the spirits, left at the doorstep of an old couple who died soon after they took her in. After that, she lived in the shrine, cared for by the groundskeeper. No one knew where she came from or what she was, for she could not be human. Not when everything she touched yielded in her hands like water, not when she moved like the water itself.

She was different. That had been her undoing, her greatest failing.

The summer had been hot, he remembers. So hot that the rains ceased, and the people grew short-tempered and fractious as the crops began to wilt and wither. He knows they blame the girl, because she is different, because ill-fortune followed her everywhere.

When the summer storms came, it was with a vengeance. They flooded the fields and soaked through the dry earth until it became mud. The river had been swollen with rain, dangerous and fast flowing. Again, the villagers blamed her. First a drought, now a flood.

Later, the village will say she fell. Later, they will say it was an accident. Shisei doesn't know if that is true, but he knows she cries for help, cries for him. He takes her from the river and she clings to him, sobbing. He strokes her hair and tells her old stories as he carries her back to the shrine. She falls asleep in his arms, face still wet with tears and rain.

Shisei looks at her and he is reminded again how cruel people can be. It would be a kindness to let her forget, but forgetting does not undo what has been done. He can only stroke her hair while she sleeps, and promise he would protect her.

The years pass, and the girl grows into a young woman. She becomes a shrine maiden, but unlike the rest, she sees him. She makes the sweet sticky rice cakes for him because she knows he likes them. She brings sakura branches in spring and bamboo in winter. He tells her stories of past generations, of other spirits and creatures he’s met over the years, though his memory is uncertain. The tengus flying high in the mountains, the kitsune who changes shapes as easily as breathing, the kappa that lurks in streams and ponds.

It is an easy way to pass the years.

“You are too kind,” Mizuchi says, when he comes to visit. He had seen the village in its busyness, bringing the harvests in, the laughter of the children, how Shisei’s blessings had shown in the plumpness of their cheeks and the softness of their bellies.

Shisei wonders about that. The humans ask for so little, it is easy enough to give. If no one in the village starves over the winter, if no child wanders too deep into the forest and is lost, surely it cannot be a bad thing.

“Am I?” Shisei asks. He doesn't know anymore. His duty is to protect the people, and protect them he has. He shields them from misfortune, from things like the sickness and hunger as best he can.

“Humans forget too easily, and take us for granted. They grow complacent, then greedy.” Thunder booms in the distance, an ominous storm approaching. Shisei can see the villagers startle, then scurry as they try to gather everything before the rain comes. The glint in Mizuchi's eye is inhuman. “Sometimes, it does them well to remember that we are gods, that we should be feared.”

The heavens open up above them. Shisei does not mind; he is a water god after all. But he softens it, turns it from a torrential downpour to a gentle rain, just as he reaches a hand out to caress Mizuchi's face, now creased in a frown.

“Thank you for your concern, my friend,” he murmurs softly. “You are so very kind to think of me.”

Mizuchi sighs as the rain falls down around them.

_And so, the village prospered._

iv. the rains

_But came the year the waters did not cease. The rivers swelled and flooded the fields, and still the rain did not stop. The village begged and prayed for the spirit to intervene, but he did not._

Dragons are finicky and dangerous. Shisei may be a powerful spirit in his own right, but the dragons are a different creature. Stronger, more fickle and mercurial in their moods, prone to punish on unexplained whims.

It starts with the rains, endless and unceasing. The river is swollen after three days, threatening to spill over and ruin the crops. The water is muddy and violent, a dangerous thing waiting to be loosed.

Shisei watches the dragon in the sky, weaving through the storm. It is one of the older ones, he thinks, the tail peeking through the clouds. 

A visiting kitsune had warned him that they would come, because the girl was possibly the child of one of the lesser dragon spirits, their many gifts running in her blood. Shisei thinks they are too careless and petty in this, casting aside those they deem unworthy only to demand its return later.

By the third week, the rains have not ceased. The fields are flooded and the crops ruined. The villagers plead and pray to him, begging him to stop the rains. But he cannot, powerful as he is, he is no match for one of the older dragons, and not one who was raging through the skies.

The village makes more offerings and chants desperate prayers, begging for him to bring a stop to the rains. But the rains do not stop, so they decide they must do more.

_So, they decided they would make a sacrifice to him. One of the shrine maidens, already devoted to him. Surely, they thought, she would not mind, already having dedicated her life in service._

They drag her to the center of the village.

She is weeping. She weeps and calls his name, begging for his help.

He answers. Of course he answers. It is her, after all.

_So he answered._

A water god always knows where to find water. It is a simple truth, and with water rising from the river, falling from the sky, Shisei is nigh invincible.

The river rises with a flick of his wrist, the waters spilling over with a tilt of his head. The skies darken ominously as the rains grow heavier. He is a god, loved and beloved. He is also a god, and gods are not always kind or forgiving.

Mizuchi had said he was too kind, but as the river rushes past, he wonders if Mizuchi would still say that now, if he could see. Lightning cracks across the sky and thunder splits the air, houses buckling as the foundations give and people are washed away. 

And in the middle of it all, untouched by the destruction around him, Shisei.

v. the village

_Some called it divine punishment, others named it senseless destruction. But it mattered naught, in the end. Those who once praised and worshipped him now reviled him, named him evil and vengeful._

Where there was prayer, now there are curses. It matters not that the fields are growing green with young rice again, that the river runs clean and teeming with fat fish. A vengeful god, they all say. An evil spirit who brought the rains, flooded the fields and the rivers, then washed away a village with it. A snake was a snake after all.

The dragon had left, eventually. Shisei cannot say why it had come or why it had left, but he doesn't need to know. All that matters to him is that it has gone.

People are resilient; they return and they rebuild. They move further away, clearing the forest beyond the river, further away from the shrine. There are houses and children, though their parents warn them away from the shrine. _Do not go into the forest, do not go near the river. Don't cross the bridge. The evil spirit lives there, and he will take you away._

Some of the older people still believe. They cross the bridge and leave him offerings still. They remember the old days and the old ways, and for their kindness Shisei blesses them twofold.

_Only she remained, of those who once worshipped him. But the spirit was weary. He tired of people and their fickle hearts._

She comes and she doesn’t leave, head bent in apology, in contrition. She asks his forgiveness and he thinks that it is not his forgiveness she needs, because his forgiveness was freely given and had not been necessary in the first place. It had been his choice, after all.

“People are fickle,” he says to her. “One day, they will forget.” She looks stricken by that, but it is only the truth. What these people measure in days and weeks, Shisei marks in decades and centuries. Where he had once been a boy, one of them, he is now long past that.

“I won't forget, Shisei-sama.” She is too kind, he thinks. She may not forget, but others will. And then, he will become a memory, then only a story.

“Thank you for calling my name,” he says. She had called for him, and he had saved her. For a god's power is in their name after all. As long as someone remembers, they are gods still. And when they are forgotten, Shisei will simply be a spirit who was once a god, beholden to no one but himself.

He lays his hand on her hair, like she is that girl he had pulled from the river all those years ago. In so many ways, she still is. 

“Live well, and be happy,” he murmurs. Her eyes fill with tears as she nods. He blesses her once more, gives her a god's protection again. Long life and happiness, all that she could need or want. It is his last gift to her, for being his friend.

He is so tired now. It matters not if they call him kind or evil. Shisei knows who he is and what he’s done. Gods are not always kind or infallible, and Shisei had failed in his duty to them. But it doesn’t matter now.

Little matters now.

_Thus, the spirit retreated._

vi. the shrine

_Deep in the forest, there is a shrine._

This is a kindness. Dream and memory, the years passing in a soft blur. Humans live such short lives, they will forget in time.

Once, there had been a village. Once, there had been a girl beloved by the gods. Once, the gods had heeded her pleas and brought punishment on the people for their hubris, for daring to presume to know what could be in the hearts of gods.

The rains came. The river swelled, then burst. Everything washed away with the water—people, buildings, memory.

Now, there is only a forest, a slow running river. Past it, a gate, a shrine.

Inside, Shisei sleeps. 

And slowly, he forgets.

_Within it, an old god sleeps, and is forgotten._


End file.
